"And won't he work it!" says he, rubbing his hands together. "Dry land'll do for him, two weeks out."
"Yaaas," says Eli. "You're a turble person, you are—you'd ought to been a pirate, Jess."
Cap'n Jesse got mad again—he was more like a little boy than anybody of his weight I ever see. He come up to Eli and shook his finger under that hawk-bill of a nose.
"I don't want none of your slack, Eli!" he says. "You've tried me often"—here he got impressive, talking very slow—"don't you try me once too much!"
Eli grabbed the hand, stuck the finger in his mouth, and bit it.
"Aaoow!" yells the captain, grabbing his finger. "You quit your foolin'!"
By this time I was lost entirely. What to make of the proceedings was beyond guessing. Boylike, I thought men always acted with some big idea in view, but the next minute Eli and Cap'n Jesse had grabbed holt of one another and was scuffling and giggling around the deck like a pair of kids. Captain Jess was stout about the shoulders; he had Eli waving in the breeze once, but at last Eli gave him a back trip and down they come. Then up they got; each cut off a hunk of chewing and began to talk as if they'd acted perfectly reasonable. Seems that's the way they always come together.
The three of us took a look about the boat. She was an able, fine three-master, the pride of Jesse's soul; 'most as big as a ship.
Them were the days when most folk built deep and narrer, but Jesse had ideas of his own when he laid down the lines of the Matilda, of Boston. She looked bluff and heavy in the bows and her bilges turned hard, but she walked over the water, and don't you forget it. Moreover, she was the kindest boat in a seaway I ever boarded. Old Matilda girl would heel just so far; after that the worst draft that ever whistled wouldn't put her under an inch; she'd part with her sticks first. Handy boat, a schooner, too; sensible and Yankeefied. Lord! what a claw-and-messing on board a square-rigger, compared to it! And taking two men to the schooner's one at that.
The Matilda was fitted for passengers. She had eight nice clean cabins, and fine quarters for the crew. In most such boats you can't more 'n stand up, if you stretch between hair and shoe-leather the way I do, but here there was head-room a-plenty. And Uncle Jesse ate the boys well, too. Good old craft and good old boy running her. Soon's you realized that all his spitting and swearing and roaring didn't amount to no more than a hearty sneeze, you got along with Jesse great, if you was fit to get along with anybody.